Hyderabad: On a similar summer day 15 years ago, as the 2009 assembly and Lok Sabha results were streaming live on Telugu news channels, a dejected K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) turned towards his party associates in the room and remarked, “guess this is the time to shut shop.”
The then Telangana Rashtra Samithi, which KCR had set up in 2001 with the “sole agenda of attaining statehood”, was reduced to two Lok Sabha and 10 assembly seats, down from its tally of five Lok Sabha and 26 MLAs in 2004.
One of the two MPs elected was KCR himself with a narrow margin from Mahbubnagar; the other was M. Vijayashanti, the “lady superstar” turned politician, from Medak, (who later joined the BJP and the Congress last year.)
Cut to the present, the 2024 general election results Tuesday show KCR’s party failing to open its account.
While KCR’s reaction this time to his party’s depressing performance is not known yet, the defeat comes at a time when the Telangana Congress seniors are advising the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) chief to shutter-down now anyway, claiming that a majority of remaining 36 BRS MLAs would also desert him very soon.
Minister Komatireddy Venkata Reddy says BRS will be empty, while Uttam Kumar Reddy predicts BRS will be extinct.
“Today’s electoral setback is certainly very disappointing. But we will continue to toil and will rise from the ashes again like a Phoenix,” said KCR’s son and BRS leader K. T. Rama Rao.
In the last 24 years since TRS was founded, we have seen it all. Stellar achievements, successes and also many setbacks
The greatest glory: formation of Telangana state will remain our Biggest achievement
Being a regional party won two consecutive state elections with a good…
— KTR (@KTRBRS) June 4, 2024
Following its drubbing in the 2023 November polls, the BRS has, in the weeks before the general elections, lost five of its sitting Lok Sabha MPs to the Congress (3) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (2). Three MLAs and one MLC too switched over to the ruling Congress in Telangana under Revanth Reddy.
On various occasions, Congress leaders claimed that over two dozen BRS MLAs are in touch with them. Giving credence, over a dozen BRS MLAs had already met with CM Revanth Reddy over the last few months, though stating it as for their constituency development purpose.
Political analysts attribute the BRS’s dismal Lok Sabha results to several factors.
“From the cavernous faults in KCR’s brainchild and his government executed Rs 1 lakh crore Kaleshwaram project to the alleged phone tapping of opposition leaders etc during his tenure, and his partymen leaving him in droves post-defeat, have all contributed in the BRS’s fall,” says Shaik Mastan, a political analyst. The psephologist had on Saturday predicted zero seats for the BRS.
Also Read: Tea breaks, chats, selfies & X debut — how KCR is trying to reconnect with public after 2023 drubbing
‘Will work for people’
With no Lok Sabha seats and 35 odd MLAs now, the two term in power BRS’s fortunes have dried up to an all-time low
A humbling defeat, observers say, for the regional satrap, who, sitting on a Rs 1,000 crore odd party fund, was aspiring to go national. KCR himself said this at his party plenary in April 2022.
And renaming his party in 2022 as BRS, dropping the hugely sentimental Telangana, KCR opened branches in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh. Those units are defunct now.
Even after the drubbing in the assembly polls and various surveys, public opinions predicting 1-2 out of 17 Lok Sabha seats, the BRS chief had exuded confidence of not only winning 12-14 seats but announced he is in the race for PM post. The satrap opined that regional parties would be forming the government at the centre this time.
However, as exit polls indicated a poor result, KCR, while downplaying the numbers said that “whatever the outcome, his party will continue working for the people.”
Observers say KCR, 70, is still very capable of striking back, while waiting for the right opportunity.
The political uncertainty following then united Andhra Pradesh CM Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s death in a helicopter crash in September 2009 breathed vigor into the miserable KCR.
A Lok Sabha MP then, KCR went on a fast unto death forcing the UPA-2 to announce a move towards Telangana creation in December 2009. KCR sustained the agitation tempo till the state’s creation in 2014.
While advising KCR to come out of his fool’s paradise i.e., national role dreams now, political analysts opine that all is not lost for the BRS and its supremo.
“We cannot say the BRS chapter is closed with two defeats. It is a regional party owing its existence to regionalism. There is no denying that the political feat, credit of achieving Telangana goes to KCR. He made history and is part of history here,” Prof Purushotham Reddy, a political scientist tells ThePrint.
“However, KCR must realise there is nothing for him beyond Telangana. He should go back to TRS, his domain, reconnect with its people, focusing on the local body polls which are next.”
On Saturday, on the eve of 10th Telangana formation day, KCR took umbrage to some Congress leaders projecting statehood as Sonia Gandhi’s charity.
In a 22-page open letter to CM Revanth Reddy in response to his invitation for the festivities, KCR accused the Congress of insulting the people’s agitation, sacrifices and also turning impertinent towards Telangana astitvam now.
KCR refused to participate in the 2nd June celebrations organised by the Congress government in Hyderabad on Sunday. He also led a candle light march at the Telangana martyrs memorial opposite the state assembly.
Amidst the glaring losses in general elections, a silver lining was KCR’s party winning the Mahabubnagar local authorities’ constituency MLC seat in a by-poll. BRS candidate Naveen Kumar Reddy secured 762 votes, while Congress nominee Jeevan Reddy got 653 votes in CM Revanth Reddy’s native province.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: BRS scrambles to stem defections, here are key leaders who have jumped ship to Congress, BJP